This record-breaking South African freediver grew up on a landlocked farm with the unlikely dream of becoming a mermaid (she and her sister even had their own mermaid language). She discovered freediving through a friend at university in Sweden and after graduation moved to Dahab on the Red Sea to dedicate herself to the sport. After smashing 11 records and notching up a breath-hold of five minutes 39 seconds, she gave up competing and is now teaching freediving: in the Caribbean among sperm whales, with dugongs in Papua New Guinea, and hammerheads in Costa Rica. Prinsloo tries to spend three months a year at home in Cape Town, not too far from her favourite diving spot: among the bottlenose dolphins, manta ray and turtles of southern Mozambique. Her post-dive tipple is a glass of Tipo Tinto rum at sunset bar Come & See. She always packs her yoga mat, a wide-brimmed hat, and coconut and vanilla oils to mix as a moisturiser. And her all-in-one sarong serves as sun protection, a bedsheet, a picnic blanket and, once, even as a sail. She cuts out dairy, wheat, sugar, caffeine and alcohol to prepare for deep dives, and eats as much raw food as possible; her mental preparation involves meditation and visualisation. In 2010 she launched I Am Water, a conservation charity teaching underprivileged children in coastal communities how to swim, snorkel and freedive, in the hope that the next generation will become the custodians of the oceans.

This feature first appeared in Condé Nast Traveller January/February 2017